The Marines Raise a Caution Flag
Over Use of Embedded Journalists

By

Christopher Cooper Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Updated Dec. 16, 2003 12:01 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is characteristically blunt when asked to assess the "embed" program, in which hundreds of reporters covered the Iraq war alongside U.S. troops: "I think of it as a home-run ball. I wish I'd thought of it."

But one service branch that favored the embed program from the beginning, the Marines, now raises a caution flag. In its "lessons learned" report reconstructing the Iraq campaign, the Marines First Division says the outcome might have been...